It’s spring for Yu Huanshui and Longling Mystery Cave to explode fine short plays.

Special feature of 1905 film network　"Is the play fast? Shouldn’t this be a normal rhythm? " When Guo Jingfei was interviewed by a group of media, he heard the comments of netizens on his new drama "I am Yu Huanshui", which was "short in length and fast in pace", and responded inexplicably.

There are only 12 episodes of "I am Yu Huanshui", which was premiered last Monday and ushered in the pre-on-demand finale on April 14th. This kind of rhythm really makes the audience accustomed to "chasing drama and running" shine.

The drama series got a good score of 8.4 points/53,000 people in Douban, which became the highest score in the opening year of domestic drama. "Short and pithy" is the key word of "Yu Huanshui".

"Yu Huanshui" can be "through to the finale" after a week’s release.

Coincidentally, there are only 18 episodes, 22 episodes and 12 episodes of Longling Cave, Imperfect She and detective chinatown, which have been released recently. In the future, there will be a number of "short plays" such as White Moonlight, Cloister Pavilion, Double Exploration, Silent Truth and Dear Freud.

In February this year, the State Administration of Radio and Television issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of the Creation and Production of TV dramas on the Internet", which mentioned that the shooting and production of TV dramas advocated no more than 40 episodes and encouraged the creation of short dramas within 30 episodes.

Under the double addition of policy guidance and market demand, does the popularity of "Yu Huanshui" mean that domestic network short plays have ushered in a "new era of development"?

Short duration, not short quality.

The new trend of network short play

The concept of "short play" mainly involves two levels: one is "the length of time", and the single episode is within 15 minutes; Second, "the number of episodes is small". Domestic online dramas usually take 12 episodes as the baseline, which is the lower limit of the number of episodes of many platform cooperation dramas, and the upper limit is generally not more than 30 episodes.

Depending on the characteristics of the network platform, short drama and seasonal broadcast have always been the main modes of online drama. However, unlike the early "family workshop" online drama, the development of online short drama in recent years has shown an obvious "boutique" trend.

Traditional film and television companies have entered the game. I am Yu Huanshui, jointly produced by Noon Sunshine and Iqiyi, brings together the "golden team" at noon: Hou Hongliang is the producer, screenwriter Wang Sanmao and Lei Zi have written Everything is Fine, and director Sun Molong has directed Parents’ Love.

Behind Longling Cave, Wanda Pictures is one of the producers. "Imperfect She" is a collaboration between Penguin Film and Dongshen Film. The earlier Oriental Wall Street was jointly produced by Tencent and FOSS. The entry of traditional film and television companies into the online drama market, especially the short drama market, will boost the upgrading of quality and volume.

At the same time, more and more "movie café s" are testing water network short plays. From Han Sanping’s early Crime Without a Certificate, starring Qin Hao, to the recent Imperfect She, which is composed of Zhou Xun, Kara Wai and Angie Chiu, and then to Guan Hu’s Longling Cave.

In the future, Liao Fan (Silent Truth), Duan Long (Double Detective), Wang Qianyuan (Sisyphus), Song Jia (White Moonlight) and other famous actors will also enter the show. Short plays and longer plays emphasize the so-called "film texture", and this "cross-border" will undoubtedly add to this.

"White Moonlight" stars Song Jia.

Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of Aiqiyi, once summed up the characteristics of online short plays: "It’s either short or good, but short plays are easy to make fine." Short plays should attract audiences, shape characters and unfold plots within a limited space, which puts higher demands on writers, directors and actors.

In the first six episodes of "I am Yu Huanshui", the protagonist experienced high-energy plots such as car crash, cancer and organ trafficking, and completed the roller coaster experience from the bottom to the bottom, and then rebounded, which could not be finished in 30 episodes of traditional drama. A bitter but true image of "social animals" has also jumped onto the screen.

The audience can’t help but comment: "It would be great if all the plays were finished in 12 episodes."

At present, most of the domestic online short plays are suspense and crime themes. With the appearance of works such as Imperfect She with female theme and I am Yu Huanshui with absurd realism style, the short play market presents a trend of more diversified theme types and increasingly "high-quality".

Advantages and challenges

Will short plays become mainstream?

Although Qingpingle, which was broadcast almost at the same time as I am Yu Huanshui, was produced by midday sunshine, it suffered different fate in online word of mouth.

Because of the volume of 69 episodes and slow narrative rhythm, netizens sent the director "Kaizhou Zhang" to a hot search. Although the overall production of the series is excellent, the score is still around 8 points, but the rhythm of "Qingpingle" is not in line with the viewing habits of the online students.

According to the official data of iQiyi, the abandonment rate of long dramas is rising rapidly, reaching 56% in the first quarter of 2018. At the same time, the novelty rate of the last episode of short dramas with less than 24 episodes reached 20%, and that of long dramas with more than 45 episodes was only 6%. Users are more likely to pay for high-quality short plays.

A Le, who is engaged in the development of online drama, told Xiao Dianjun that the current audience is "getting impatient". They usually brush Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker and bilibili, and the video will be scratched if it fails to attract his attention for 3 seconds. This habit will naturally be brought to the process of watching the drama, so the requirement put forward by the platform is often a word "fast".

In February this year, the Notice issued by the State Administration of Radio and Television clearly pointed out that it was resolutely opposed to artificial "water injection" and lengthening the number of episodes, and short drama creation within 30 episodes was encouraged. From January to November, 2019, the average number of recorded TV dramas has dropped from 40 episodes in the same period last year to 38 episodes, and the total number of episodes has dropped by 27%. The creation of short plays with "concentration is the essence" is both a policy orientation and a market demand.

At the 7th China Internet Audio-visual Conference held last year, Wang Xiaohui predicted that "short plays will reach a phenomenal peak in the next three years." Platforms such as Youaiteng have also accelerated the layout of online short plays.

On February 25th this year, Youku released the "White Paper on Youku Short Play Cooperation", which fully opened the cooperation of short play content, and provided partners with a series of services such as content distribution, joint marketing and commercialization realization through Youku content open platform.

Content demand of Youku short play

White Moonlight, co-produced by Youku and Wuyuan Culture, starring Yu Entai and Song Jia, and Cloister Pavilion, adapted from Keigo Higashino’s novel, are highly anticipated.

Iqiyi has created strong genre short plays for users through two theaters: Love Youth Theater and Strange Suspense Theater, and produced many dramas such as Hancheng, Ferry of Soul, The Best of Us, Little Master and Slow Down. In the future, there will be Silent Truth starring Liao Fan and White, and Very Witness starring Song Yang.

Tencent, Oriental Wall Street, Longling Cave and Imperfect She are all jointly produced by Penguin Film and Television. Tencent video also launched the "hot pot drama" incentive plan in conjunction with hot pot video. Short plays such as "Double Detective" starring Duan Long and "Skyscraper" directed by Chen Zhengdao will also meet the audience soon.

Skyscraper (16 episodes) directed by Chen Zhengdao, Zhaoren Xu and Wu Zhongtian is highly anticipated.

While the prospect is bright, the network short play market is also facing many challenges.

First of all, although short plays are not low in cost, the pursuit of "quality" and "film sense" often means higher investment. As a producer and chief screenwriter, Chen Sicheng once revealed that the production cost of a single episode of the online drama "detective chinatown" exceeded 10 million yuan. The rough estimate cost of Oriental Wall Street is more than 32 million RMB.

In contrast to the high investment, it is a relatively short period, and it is difficult for short plays with more than 10 episodes to play the "long tail effect". Without joint investment with the platform side, according to the current mode of buying dramas mainly based on the number of episodes, the profit space of producers is limited. The short broadcast cycle also poses a challenge to publicity and marketing, and it is not easy to gradually ferment word of mouth.

In addition, the audience in China have not fully adapted to the rhythm of short plays and the mode of weekly shifts, and the habit of watching plays needs to be gradually cultivated. For example, many viewers reflected in the barrage of "I am Yu Huanshui" that 12 episodes are not enough to watch, and it takes too long to wait for a week to update.

In the long run, the combination of long and short dramas will still be the development direction of the online drama market for a long time to come. As pointed out in the Notice of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, "the number of episodes of TV plays depends on the content." The number of episodes is not the standard to judge the quality of dramas, but the right way to create online dramas is to refuse to inject water, reduce the quantity and increase the quality, and deepen the content.

Guo Jingfei’s words in the interview are very thought-provoking: "Many people watch TV dramas at twice the speed. Why should we torture the audience like this? Cut all the things that should be cut well. Isn’t this respect for the audience? "